Mandatory Motherhood: Short Stories

Competition

Colgate held Starla in her hoove as she sat on a bench overlooking a training course. From her vantage point, she could see Chris and Mia standing at the start of the course warming up. Earlier the two had started bickering during breakfast about who could move around better in their pony bodies, Aaron, Mia’s boyfriend, had butted in saying they should race the obstacle course to determine who was better. The two had agreed and had spent the rest of the morning getting ready for the race.

A timer rang out and the two mares shot off, the course started out in a straight line and both mares stayed even. It didn’t take long for them to reach the first obstacle the tires. For a human, it would have been a pacing exercise but for ponies, it became a hop from tire to tire. Chris immediately hopped into the first tire and smacked her chin into the tire as she was figuring out the timing for her jumps. Mia had stopped for a moment to study the tires before she began bouncing into the center of each tire like a pogo stick and smiled as she passed Chris at the halfway point.

Colgate started at the sight she saw while Starla giggled. Chris growled as she was passed and tried to speed but slipped up several times. She got to the end of the tires she found Mia waiting for her giggling smugly. Chris stared at her for a moment before taking off into the next obstacle, crawling under barbwire. For humans, this would be a slow crawl through mud but it hadn’t rained in weeks and ponies could walk right under it if they kept their head down.

Chris only had a small lead on Mia at first since the pegasus had waited for Chris and let her pass by, but Mia had tried to speed up and raised her wings instinctively and they got caught in the bardwire. She managed to get herself free while complaining about the pricks and saw Chris had finished the course by the time she got moving again.

Chris waited for her smiling but it quickly turned to a frown when she saw blood in Mia’s feathers. Whatever they talked about Mia seemed to ignore Chris pointing towards the stands and they continued. The next obstacle was a climbing net. Chris climbed it like a ladder but Mia kept launching herself up like a grasshopper and slid down the other side, however, her leap and descent looked odd and worried Colgate as she couldn’t see the other side of the obstacle.

Chris crossed the top and slid down the back. A couple of minutes later Chris came around the side carrying an annoyed-looking Mia on her back. Colgate chased after them and found Chris carrying Mia towards the infirmary to clean and bandage her wings.

Mia complained that she could keep going but Chris argued with her that the barbwire is rusty. She had me find a tetanus vaccination and inject Mia despite our worries about human medicine on ponies. She said it was better than getting lockjaw or gangrene.